


You Can Call Me Batman

by bricoleur10



Category: Leverage
Genre: Eliot's a Badass, Gen, General Bantering, Humor, Nate's Stressed Out, team fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 21:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2747504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bricoleur10/pseuds/bricoleur10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The One in Which Eliot Fights a Bear. Kinda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can Call Me Batman

**Author's Note:**

> John Rogers joked every season about how someday they were going to have Eliot fight a bear. By Season 3, I was disappointed that it hadn't happened yet, so I wrote it myself. Now that the series is over I feel the need the post this, just in case anyone else was sad that we never got to see it for real and wanted to, at the very least, read my take on it. 
> 
> Set (and written) somewhere around season 3. References to The Gone Fishin’ Job
> 
> Enjoy!

\---------

Eliot maybe doesn’t understand sometimes that he _isn’t_ Batman. 

At least, that’s what Nate’s thinking about now. 

After all, Parker doesn’t seem to get that she’s not exactly normal. Hardison isn’t always aware of the fact that life and social interactions happen outside of cyberspace. Sophie still thinks she’s a good actress when she’s not playing a mark. 

So, maybe that’s what this is. Eliot just not _getting_ that he is, in fact, a mortal.

Wagering this as his best guess, Nate speaks loudly, over the commotion happening all over the comms. 

“Eliot! You realize that this is gonna end badly, right?” 

On the hitter’s end of the earbud a captive black bear named Lucinda growls loudly, masking whatever the other man might have said. 

“He’s out of his damn mind,” Hardison’s got his ghetto voice out tenfold. He usually does when he’s a micro-fraction of a second away from having a panic attack. “He’s insane, that’s all it is, insanity, man, I’ll tell ya. Crazy, white…” 

“Hardison, that’s not helping,” Sophie’s trying-not-to-sound-frantic frantic voice cuts the hacker off mid spiel. “Nate, we have to get him out of there.”

And while Nate agrees that this situation isn’t exactly the best he’s ever seen, he can’t help snorting at Sophie’s fierce declaration. “Whaddya wanna do?” He asks, “Con the bear?” 

“Is Lucinda gonna eat Eliot?” Parker’s mildly alarmed, deeply inquisitive voice comes through next. Nate can picture her tilting her head to the side, staring into the cage where Eliot and Lucinda are; half worried, half innocently fascinated. 

“No!” Hardison answers her, which Nate honestly doesn’t think was that necessary. “Aint nobody gonna get ate today.” 

“Well,” Nate stops himself after the word when Sophie all but screams his name. 

Right. Lying to protect the children. He remembers this game. 

“No, yeah, she’s right.” Nate’s sitting in an office, clad in his suit and bowler derby hat from earlier. The first part of their take-down-the-evil-zoo-owner con had gone great, until this whole Eliot jumping into a cage with a wild animal thing had happened. “No one’s eating Eliot today.” He takes a deep breath and puts his thinking cap on. “Sophie, is the kid still with you?” 

“She is,” Sophie confirms. 

Their mark’s seven year old daughter is the reason that Eliot is in this mess. Well, no, her father is, actually; but Brittany, the girl, had been the one who’d wandered into the bear’s habitat. Eliot, being the ever observant man that he is, had seen the girl in the cage – number one reason to properly maintain your wildlife habitats, folks – and instead of getting help, like a sane human being who doesn’t think he’s Batman might, he’d flung himself over a railing and planted his tiny, human body in front of Lucinda’s massive black bear one and screamed at the girl to get gone now, fast if at all possible. 

Brittany had fled straight to Sophie – with her pulsing maternal vibe – safe but scared, and Eliot…well, Eliot had gotten the bear’s attention all right. He’s just having a little bit of an issue losing it. 

A common problem, or so Nate’s been told, for Eliot with most females. 

Now he’s here, sitting in the zoo director’s chair, trying to sort out how to get his retrieval specialist away from a bear. A _bear_. Some days Nate just doesn’t think he gets paid enough to do this job.

“Hardison, what’s the footage from Lucinda’s habitat look like?” Nate asks, and yes, he realizes it’s a stupid question. Eliot’s in there with a three hundred and fifty pound beast, not a guy with a gun, but the question’s rolling out of his mouth before he can stop it. 

Lucinda isn’t in a cage, exactly. It’s an enclosed landscape that the public can see about one sixth of. Eliot’s, thankfully, in one of the sections not visible to the people visiting the zoo today. Even luckier for them is the fact that it’s a cloudy, rainy day in September. Not many people had been at the zoo when they’d started their con this morning, and even less are here now, since it’s nearing five in the afternoon. 

Making a spectacle of Eliot’s current predicament, while kind of funny to think about, wouldn’t have boded well for any of the thieves. As it is, only six people know where Eliot is right now – and one of them is a scared little girl. 

“It looks like he’s staring down a damn black bear,” Hardison’s incredulous reply finds him seconds later. “Whaddya want me to do, man? I can’t hack the damn bear. I can’t cut the power…well, I mean, yeah, I could, but it wouldn’t do anything except maybe piss that mama off even more. I can’t squelch her, I can’t…man, it’s a _bear_.” 

“He’s not moving, Nate,” Sophie’s voice cuts through again. “He’s just standing there _staring_ at her. Why’s he doing that?” 

Nate feels a little smile play at his lips. “Eliot knows what he’s doing.” 

“Lucinda’s growling again,” Parker’s curious tone assaults him, as do the low rumblings of Lucinda herself. 

“Parker, do not go into that cage.” A thought strikes Nate - he’s been working with these people for the better part of three years, and he knows them by now, knows what each of them might be inclined to do in any given situation. And while he doesn’t exactly have a frame of reference for this specific circumstance, he does know that Parker and Eliot’s relationship is akin to that of siblings.

He knows that her instinct here is going to be to try and protect Eliot. And while that’s a nice sentiment in theory, he really thinks that one member of his team being cornered by a bear is quite enough for today. 

He quickly schools his voice, doing his best to make it an order. “Do you hear me Parker? Do not go try to get Eliot.” 

“Wait, what?” Hardison reacts to that, or course. “Parker, what are you doing? Girl, Eliot can handle a bear. You can’t. Stay away from it.” 

“Eliot can handle a bear?” The hitter’s voice is low and gritty, finally breaking through to them now that Lucinda’s quieted down a bit. “Eliot can _handle_ a bear?” There’s a moment of pause, and then the normally gruff, irritated voice they’re all so used to comes back happy and light – damn near chipper. “Thanks, man.” 

“No problem,” Hardison sounds a little sarcastic, but mostly relieved. He’s watching real-time footage of Eliot and Lucinda. Parker and Sophie are actually there, watching it happen from their respective sides of the enclosure. Nate’s the only one who can’t see what’s going on. “Wanna tell me how you plan on getting out of this?” 

“Bears are territorial.” Eliot grunts. He’s speaking in a level tone at a controlled volume. Nate’s not sure if that’s for the bear’s sake or theirs. “Usually, if you stay still and don’t make eye contact, they’ll back off.”

“Because they sense that you’re not a threat,” Sophie says, understanding clear in her words. It’s a different context maybe, but Sophie does know all about eye contact and surrender. Then again, in yet another different context, so does Eliot. 

“Exactly,” the hitter breathes. 

“So why isn’t she backing off?” Parker inquires. 

Before she gets an answer, Nate hears Eliot’s breath hitch, and then Lucinda makes that roaring noise again. 

“Parker,” Eliot’s teeth are clenched, Nate can tell just by listening. “How close are you to the cage?”

“Don’t worry,” she says breezily, but her own voice is suspiciously low. “No one ever notices when I come into a room.” 

“Parker!” It’s weird to hear shouting, after that long beat of mostly hushed talking. It makes Nate cringe. Sophie and Hardison screaming in unison isn’t exactly quiet. 

“Get away from them!” 

“Girl, get your ass away from that wild animal before it _eats_ you!” 

“Don’t worry,” she’s all but whispering now. “I’m gonna help.” 

Nate can’t see what’s going on, but that declaration feels faintly ominous. 

“Parker.” It’s not a shout. Hell, it’s barely a word. But even Nate feels himself wanting to respond automatically to it. 

God, he’d never known that Eliot could get his voice to pitch like that. He sounds like a task masker, a sergeant, a _leader_. Nate can imagine Eliot, with that tone, giving orders that would result in life or death.

_Kill that one._

_Move on._

_Fire._

_Stand down._

_Make him talk._

It’s a voice that’s not easy to argue with; pure authority. 

He doesn’t have to have a visual to know that Parker had stopped. 

“You listening to me?” He asks after a second, deathly calm tone kind of ironic given his circumstance.

“Yeah.” The thief’s own voice is resigned. 

“Get away from this cage. _Now_.” 

“But-”

“ _Parker_.” 

“Fine.” She huffs. “I was just trying to help.” 

“By poking the bear with a stick?” 

“I don’t have a stick.”

Four voices speak as one. “ _Parker_!”

“Fine,” she hisses again, a yell that can’t be a yell. “I’m walking away. Happy?”

“Delirious.” Eliot drawls. 

“See if I come to your funeral after Lucinda eats you.” 

Eliot’s next words are high-pitched and straight up _mocking_. “See if I come to your funeral,” He mimics her. 

Nate laughs out loud at the childish banter. He doesn’t see that kind of thing often from Eliot at all. It’s a stark contrast to the deathly calm orders of moments before. 

Unfortunately, Nate and the team weren’t the only ones who’d heard Eliot’s high-pitched rendition of Parker’s threat. 

Lucinda makes a noise that all but shatters the earbud, Nate’s sure. God, he never would have guessed that bears could be this _loud_. 

“She really is tall when she stands up like that,” Sophie sounds a little dazed. 

“Dammit, Hardison!” Eliot gets out at a normal – if not significantly higher than that – volume, because of the noise Lucinda’s making. 

“Me?” The hacked sputters. “What did I do?” 

“Yeah, what did Hardison do?” Nate asks. 

“That’s not the point!” Eliot screams. “Would someone shoot this thing with a tranquilizer already?” 

“Huh.” Nate bites his lip. He really should have thought of that solution earlier. 

“What about that whole submission, eye contact thing?” Sophie inquires, also speaking louder than normal, since Lucinda apparently doesn’t want to calm down this time. 

“She’s agitated!” Eliot screams. “The conditions of the zoo, what Marcus has been doing to her…she’s, she’s….” 

“She’s pissed off, and taking her frustration out on someone she knows she can beat.” Hardison finishes. “That sound familiar to anyone else?” 

“Dammit, Hardison!” Eliot screams again. 

This time Nate thinks it’s pretty well deserved. 

“Will someone just tranquilize the bear?” Parker asks, still sounding a little sullen at not having been allowed to get in on Eliot’s fun. “I’m getting a headache from all the screaming.” 

“Yes, Zoey, hi,” they can all hear Sophie on the phone with their client a moment later. “I’m down here at the zoo…no, no, nothing’s gone wrong, exactly…” 

“I’m stuck in a cage with a pissed off bear!” Eliot screams. “How’s that not wrong?!” 

“We just have a little…incident…” Sophie continues, ignoring the irate hitter. “Well, Eliot, you remember him, right? You met him with Nate at the bar?” There’s a long pause and then the subtle sound of Sophie sighing. “Yes, the one with the pretty hair.” 

Even over the continuous roars of Lucinda, Hardison’s babbling, Parker’s mumblings about how she could _too_ fight a bear as well as Eliot, and Sophie’s professional chatter, Nate hears Eliot’s triumphant little _humph_ , and can so easily picture his cocky grin that he nearly slams his head into the desk. 

Yeah, so they all kind of wish they had Eliot’s hair – especially Sophie – but does the man really need to gloat about it at a time like this? 

“No, no, he’s _fine_ ,” Sophie’s saying now. “A little trapped, perhaps, but nothing he can’t manage.” 

“The first time in his life, probably, the man’s been in a room with someone he can’t beat,” Hardison snorts. “Power shift’ll do him some good.” 

“I can hear you, man.” Eliot points out. 

“Has she calmed down at all?” Nate inquires. The bear’s a little quieter now; growling lowly as opposed to the animalistic roaring of a few minutes ago. 

“She aint ready to attack quite yet, if that’s what you’re askin’,” Eliot manages. 

“Yes, anything that will knock a bear of that size out immediately would be good,” Sophie’s wrapping up her conversation.

“How do you know so much about bears?” Parker asks, and Nate can vaguely hear her chewing something. Probably some of the cotton candy she’d grown an obsession with since she’d first laid eyes on it seven hours ago. 

“I used to go camping.” He says like it should be obvious. Nate doubts that camping is the only outdoor activity in which Eliot had ever found himself in wild bear populated lands, but he appreciates that the other   
man had spared Parker the whole truth. 

The thief’s next words strike them all a little dumb, though. “What’s camping?” She asks innocently. 

“What’s camping?” Hardison exclaims. “Girl, have you never seen a movie in your _life_?”

“Movies lie.” Nate can picture her shrugging. 

“I’mma kill all’a you,” Eliot informs them. 

“Zoey’s on her way here,” Sophie updates them. “She phoned the zoo’s control team, they should be here in a few minutes. Oh, shh, honey, it’s okay. He’ll be fine.” 

Nate belatedly remembers that there’s been a child somewhere within her general vicinity this whole time. 

“Is he a superhero?” Nate hears that little girl ask, and something deep in his chest twinges. 

Sophie’s answer doesn’t come for a few long moments. “Yes, honey. He is.” 

“Yeah, he is. Like, a lot.” Parker chimes in, and Nate figures out that they’re in the same place now. “He can’t fly, though.” 

Brittany asks, “Can he punch through walls?” and Nate’s not the only one snorting. 

“He can do that.” Parker tells her solemnly. “He still owes Nate a new kitchen cabinet, in fact. But don’t tell him that.” 

“What did Eliot do to my kitchen?” Nate demands. 

“Oops.” 

“Parker,” Eliot growls. “We’re going camping next weekend. I hope you know that.” 

“But I don’t know _how_.” She points out. 

“Y’all have fun with that.” Hardison chimes in. “Hey, they’re evacuating the zoo. Y’think that’ll hurt our job?”

“You’re comin’, too, man.” Eliot informs him. 

“Aw, hell no,” Hardison argues. “Last time we tried to do something out-doorsey, we ended up makin’ a bomb out of a cigarette.” 

“And tell me that wasn’t fun.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, it really was,” Hardison concedes, “But no way in hell am I agreeing to a weekend in the woods with you.” 

“Guys,” Nate interrupts. “Maybe we should let Eliot focus on not getting crushed by the giant animal that’s about to fall in his general direction, hmm?” 

“Oh, he’ll be fine,” Sophie scoffs. “He’s lasted twenty-three minutes in there already and hasn’t died.” 

“Thank you for that heart-felt concern,” Eliot bites. Nate’s never one hundred percent sure if he’s being sarcastic or serious when he uses that tone. He doubts the others are, either. 

Whatever the case, eight minutes later finds Eliot walking out of Lucinda’s habitat; dirty, and faintly bruised, but no worse for the wear. Hell, he looks better right now than he does after most fights. 

Twenty minutes after Eliot’s you-really-can’t-call-it-a-rescue the rest of the team is standing in a half circle around Hardison’s van (very soon to be named after Eliot’s would-be bear killer, but Nate doesn’t know that yet). Sophie had returned Brittany to the safety of her mother’s care, and Eliot had hung back to talk to Zoey. 

“What?” Eliot asks, noticing their expressions when he finally saunters up, a piece of the zoo’s stationary folded in his hand and a cocky grin plastered to his face. “She wanted to talk about, y’know, the bear.” 

“The bear, sure,” Hardison rolls his eyes and grabs at the back door of the van, climbing in first. He swings around before the step up and looks at the hitter, studying him seriously. “I’ll trade you a weekend in sleeping bags for five days in a cabin. Electricity and wifi, but you can still go fishing. Even kill a wild animal if you’ve got your heart all set on it.” 

Eliot glowers but rolls his eyes after a surprisingly short moment. “Fine,” he gripes. “But I’m still teaching Parker how to pitch a tent.” 

Hardison’s grumbling something about useless skills as he gets into the van. 

“Is camping like surveillance?” Parker asks Eliot, titling her head inquisitively. “Because I’ve used sleeping bags for that before.” 

“Get in the van, Parker.” He sounds strained as he pinches at the bridge of his nose. His eyes are closed, so he nearly flinches when Parker places a hand on his shoulder a moment later. When he opens his eyes again and meets her gaze she says, “I’m glad you didn’t get eaten,” and then quickly follows Hardison into the van. 

Eliot looks between the two remaining adults, eyebrows raised. “She does care about you,” Sophie shares, in that voice that leaves no room for arguments or miscommunications. “She just can’t always show it.”   
Eliot shrugs and snorts, but Nate sees that Sophie’s words had sunk in. The grifter sees it, too. She uses his shoulder as a ledge to lift herself up onto the edge of the van. Eliot helps her without a second thought.

Over his head, Sophie beams. 

Nate rolls his eyes for real. 

“Y’know,” the mastermind starts when the other three are situated in the vehicle, “I was kind of just getting used to watching you fight _people_.”

“Gotta keep ya on your toes, Nate,” Eliot slaps his shoulder – probably harder than he realizes – and laughs. Then he follows Sophie and the others, finding a place amongst them.

Nate tilts his head back and takes a deep breath. The air in the parking lot of the zoo smells faintly of dung. 

“Sophie,” he hears Parker saying, “Is there anything to steal when you go camping?” 

Hardison’s asking, “Y’think we can find a circus master to take down when we get back? I’d like’ta see ya tame a lion, man.” 

“There’s nothing in the forest worth taking, really,” Sophie’s responding, and it sounds like she really had put thought into it. “Nate!” She calls a moment later. “Let’s go. These shoes are killing my feet.” 

Nate takes one last whiff of dung and then climbs up to join his team. 

Today Eliot had fought a bear. Kinda. 

How bad could tomorrow possibly be?


End file.
